Twilight Falling

  Questions, questions, the half-drow’s mental voice mocked. I’ll consider giving you answers as I chew out your kidneys.

  The hairs on the nape of Cale’s neck stood on edge. Could the half-drow read his mind?

  The half-drow called back over his shoulder, “Vraggen, dispel this darkness. Cale and I need to talk in a more intimate way.”

  Cale heard the sound of casting from the road and his heart began to race. He wanted to run but knew he would only further exhaust himself. He would have to face the half-drow and wizard there, and he’d have to face them alone.

  Whispering, he incanted a spell that would give him Mask’s blessing in combat. Casting it brought him comfort. It reminded him that he wasn’t alone.

  He decided then to do what he had never before done—request something from Mask other than spells. He suspected that the half-drow would ‘hear’ his prayer, but he prayed nevertheless, prayed that Mask himself would bolster Cale’s spell and resist Vraggen’s attempt to dispel it.

  The sound of Vraggen’s casting ceased.

  And nothing happened! The darkness remained. Cale gripped his holy symbol so tightly it made his fingers cramp. Mentally, he thanked the Lord of Shadows.

  Now come down here and let’s get intimate, he thought, for the half-drow’s benefit.

  The half-drow scowled and mumbled something unintelligible. Cale expected the wizard to appear presently, but he did not. Strange. Cale used the opportunity to cast another spell, a protective dweomer that would make him undetectable to divinations and hopefully keep the half-drow out of his head.

  Passersby began to stream past the alley, followed by occasional troops of Scepters. The half-drow tried to look nonchalant as they passed, but the traffic was thickening. More and more people streamed past. Cale had never before been so happy to see the city’s watchmen.

  After a few more moments, the half-drow gestured at his pants, shot a hate-filled stare down the alley, and walked out of view. Cale didn’t need to have a voice in his head to read that look.

  This isn’t over, it had said. Cale agreed.

  He slid his sword back into his scabbard and incanted a healing spell. The energy warmed him, but otherwise did little to obviate the dullness he still felt from the wizard’s spell. Time would have to heal that. He wondered again why the wizard had not pursued him. Perhaps the spell that had projected the image of the wizard could not move far from the location in which the spell had been cast? Perhaps.

  He gave himself a few more moments to recover.

  From down the street, he heard the calls and shouts of the men and women who were struggling to contain the fire at the Stag. Wanting to avoid the street traffic, he turned and scaled the rough wall behind him. When he reached the roof, two stories up, he mentally dispelled the globe of darkness in the alley below. No one had seemed to notice it, but if he left it there too long, someone surely would.

  Staying low on his belly, he slid forward to the roof’s edge and scanned the street below. No sign of the half-drow or wizard. Up the block, smoke choked the air, and a full crowd milled in a semicircle around the Stag. He surveyed the crowd carefully but saw no sign of the half-drow or the wizard there either. They were gone. For now.

  The Scepters, holding their glaives crosswise, had formed up a line to keep the crowd at bay. Priests of Milil, dressed in flowing burgundy robes, summoned water into the air above the fire and let it cascade down into the flames, all the while singing a soft dirge. Each such spell resulted in a hissing cloud of steam and smoke. Gondar priests in scale mail, obviously protected by fire wards, actually walked unharmed in the midst of the flames. Mindful of the smoke, which could still kill, they pulled bodies from the cinders and laid them in a neat row in the street. As Cale had feared, there appeared to have been no survivors.

  The fire at the Stag had not spread to other buildings and seemed under control. The priests did their work well. Cale couldn’t linger overlong. Given the number of deaths, he knew there would be an investigation. He did not want to get caught up in that.

  He crouched on the roof and considered the night’s events. The wizard was a rogue Zhent, but why target him and Riven? Riven was out of the Zhents and Cale had never been a member. In fact, Cale had not had any interaction with Riven since the events with Gauston. While it could have been vengeance for that, Cale doubted it. Gauston had been mad—even the Cyricists probably were pleased to be rid of him.

  Why take the trouble to lure him there?

  The answer came immediately and brought him up short—to get him out of Stormweather Towers. They had sent him a letter there to get him to leave. Getting him out of the manse, away from the Uskevren, had been the real goal. Why? Were they acting as agents of a rival family? They had known his name and his affiliation with Riven. That meant that they knew what he was and what he could do. No wonder they wanted him out of Stormweather.

  They’ve got another team infiltrating the manse, he realized. Dark and empty!

  He prepared to drop to the street, but before he did, doubt chinked the armor of his certainty.

  If who or what they wanted was in Stormweather Towers, why involve Riven at all?

  He shook his head. He couldn’t see it, but he needed to get back to Stormweather.

  With his mind made up, he hung from the roof’s edge and dropped to the street. In his immediate vicinity the avenue was deserted. Everyone was up the block watching the fire. Cale turned and headed west at a run.

  From behind, he heard a soft pop followed by a low groan. He turned around.

  Riven lay sprawled in the street, flat on his back, loosely clutching a saber in each hand. Cale hesitated. He felt no particular sympathy for Riven and he needed to get back to Stormweather Towers, but finally he hurried to Riven’s side. The assassin’s good eye was open but obviously unseeing. His breath came rapidly, and his skin had gone gray.

  “Riven?” Cale nudged him unsympathetically with his foot. “Riven!”

  No response.

  Cale kneeled at his side, took out his holy symbol, and whispered the words to a healing spell. The moment the energy flowed into Riven, he gave a sharp gasp and sat up straight. Before Cale could pull away, Riven snarled and grabbed him by the wrist with one hand. His eyes were wild, his face contorted with rage and fear.

  “Not anymore! I’ll kill you—”

  Cale grabbed Riven’s forearm to keep him from inadvertently stabbing with his steel.

  “Riven!” Cale repeated. “Riven!”

  The assassin’s gaze cleared. He stopped struggling and looked around, dazed.

  “Cale? Where are they?”

  “They’re gone. I didn’t get either of them.” He looked up the street to the fire. “We need to move. Scepters are all over.”

  Though it took a conscious effort of will, he helped the assassin to his feet. He gazed into Riven’s eye, the eye in which he had just seen fear for the first time.

  “What in the Hells happened to you?” asked Cale.

  The assassin stood on wobbly legs. His eye grew distant.

  “I’m not sure,” he said. “The spell … took me somewhere … else. Somewhere dark. I—”

  He seemed suddenly to realize what he was saying, and how he must look. He shook his head, pushed Cale’s helping hand roughly away and recovered at least a semblance of his sneer.

  “It doesn’t matter what happened,” Riven said. “We didn’t get them, but they didn’t get us. They’re going to wish they had.”

  That sounded like Riven. Cale gave him a nod.

  “I need to get back to Stormweather Towers. Where are you staying?” said Cale. “Never mind, I’ll find you later. In the meantime, see what you can find out. We know he was a Cyricist.”

  “Whoresons are everywhere. When do we meet?”

  “I said I’ll find you,” Cale replied, and he sped off down the street.

  CHAPTER 5

  TO GUARD THE GUARDIANS

  From Sarn Street, nothing a
ppeared amiss at Stormweather Towers but that did not put Cale at ease. He sprinted up the slate-paved walkway to the main gate, breathing heavily and sweating. He held his blade bare. He must have looked a madman attempting to overthrow the House with only a single sword.

  Two Uskevren guards, both young and unfamiliar to Cale, stepped briskly from the stone gatehouse, mail chinking, blades drawn, and shields ready. Two older guards followed hard after and took positions out wide, cocked crossbows leveled at Cale’s chest. The oldest of the four, a paunchy, middle-aged warrior with a short black beard and mustache, gestured with his crossbow.

  “Scabbard that weapon and cease your advance. Now!”

  Cale stopped ten paces from the guards but did not sheathe his blade. In the dim light of the gatehouse torches, it took him a moment to place the speaker—Almor, one of the sergeants of the house guard. The old warrior had been with the family since the Year of the Wyvern.

  “I said scabbard that weapon,” Almor said again, and Cale could hear the threat in his voice.

  Cale had caught his breath. Being near Stormweather, he automatically fell back into his role as House Uskevren’s chief steward.

  “I trust you do not greet all of our visitors who arrive after sunset with bared steel and challenges, Almor.”

  Almor slid sideways and grabbed a torch from the sconce on the gatehouse wall. He stepped forward, holding the brand before him and squinting. His crossbow, held steady in one hand, still marked Cale’s chest.

  “Step into the light.”

  Cale stepped a few paces nearer.

  “Mister Cale?” asked Almor. “Is that you?

  “It is.”

  “By Tempus, man, what happened to you? You’re all covered in soot. Lower your weapons,” he ordered over his shoulder, and the other guards did. Almor looked back at Cale. “What’s going on here, Mister Cale?”

  Almor always called him “Mister Cale,” though Cale had told him long before to drop the “Mister.”

  “I’ll provide the details later, Almor. For now, find Orrin and organize some search teams. We may have intruders in the house.”

  Almor’s mustache twitched and he said, “Intruders? Mister Cale, I assure you no one has passed this post and I’ve heard no alarm.”

  “The manse has many gates, Almor, and these intruders wield powerful magic.” While Cale knew the wards on the manse proper prevented anyone from teleporting directly inside, an intruder could nevertheless transport himself onto the surrounding grounds and steal into the house from there. “Search the house first, then the grounds. Go in the main door in front. Gather the guards there. Check on the lady, Lord Tamlin, and Mistress Thazienne first. Leave men with each. Clear the second floor. Shout if you notice anything suspicious. Anything. Do you understand?”

  Almor nodded and said, “Yes, sir.”

  “You and you,” Cale said, pointing at the two young men. “You’re with me. We’ll start on the first floor, beginning at the rear of the house, and gather men as we go. Go, Almor.”

  Without another word, Almor and the other guard turned and ran for the main door of the manse as fast as their armor allowed.

  Cale looked at the two men with him and said, “Stay close to me and do what I say.”

  They nodded, and one of them said, “Word was you’d left, Mister Cale. I’m glad to see it’s not so.”

  Cale didn’t take the time to correct the guard’s misperception. He was back, but only temporarily.

  He sprinted for the house. Burdened with their mail, the guardsmen struggled to keep up. The gardens were empty, the shrubs and dwarf trees ghostly in the darkness. Cale stopped.

  “Where are the grounds patrols?”

  The young guardsmen shared a confused look, and one of them said, “I don’t know, sir.”

  Could all of them have been put down? Cale wondered. Probably not. After all, the Uskevren estate covered a lot of ground. Unless there was a special event or some reason for alarm, only twenty-five or so guards were on duty at any given time. Possibly, there were just no guards in the immediate vicinity. It was dark and Cale couldn’t see far. He hoped that was the explanation.

  “You,” he said to one of the guards. “See if you can find any of the grounds patrols. Alert them to what’s happening and get them into the house.”

  Cale wanted to ensure the safety of the family foremost. The man looked unsure.

  “What’s happening, sir?” the guard asked.

  “I’m not entirely sure. But be careful. I mean that. You call out if you see or hear anything. Do not try to deal with it alone.”

  The man nodded, turned, and sped off back through the gardens.

  “Let’s go,” Cale said to the other.

  They entered the house via a back entrance near the kitchens. Embers from the supper fires still smoldered in the three great hearths. Besides that soft glow, the kitchen stood dark and empty. Brilla and the kitchen girls were probably already asleep in the servants’ quarters near the stables.

  Heading for the door that led into the main hallway, Cale moved past the preparation tables, the butcher’s block, and several stools.

  “Stay close,” he said over his shoulder to the guard.

  The young man nodded, tightening his grip on his long sword. The clink of the guard’s mail and the thump of his hobnailed boots on the wood floor sounded an alarm to Cale’s ears. He should have come alone. Nothing for it now, though.

  Without warning, the kitchen door flew open. The guard behind Cale gave a start and stumbled backward over a stool. Cale dropped into a crouch, blade ready. The dim light from the hallway beyond illumined an armored figure with his blade held high to strike. Cale recognized him immediately—Almor.

  “Almor!” Cale said in a sharp whisper. “It’s us.”

  “Mister Cale?” Almor hissed, and lowered his blade a bit.

  “Where are the other guards, man? Godsdamnit, I told you to gather your men.”

  Almor stepped through the doorway and spoke in a whisper, “I sent the guards stationed at the main door upstairs to check on Lord Tamlin and Lady Shamur. When I went to pick up the guards at the garden door, I thought I heard someone in the parlor. No one should be there, Mister Cale. I was on my way to check on it when I heard this one—” he nodded at the young guard—“clattering around in here like a drunk cooking maid. I thought you were more of them and figured I’d better do something.”

  The young guard mumbled something and looked sheepish. Cale thumped Almor on his shoulder.

  “You did well, Almor. Now keep quiet and follow me.”

  Only a single oil lamp on a side table illuminated the hallway beyond the kitchen. The parlor was just down the hall. From there, Cale’s keen ears caught a faint scuffling, like a boot dragged over the hardwood.

  Blade held before him, Cale stalked down the corridor. When he reached the parlor, he peeked around the doorjamb and spotted two figures standing near one of the bookcases across the room. Both had their backs to him. In the darkness, he could discern no features, but the light from the hall glinted on steel.

  Cale charged, shouting as he ran, “Almor, here!”

  His call startled the intruders. They whirled around and Cale saw them more clearly—

  They wore the blue and silver livery of House Uskevren.

  Even as the implications of that realization began to register, Cale tripped over something meaty in the middle of the floor. He caught himself on a reading desk before he fell but. …

  Corpses. Three of them, all Uskevren guards with their livery stained dark. Cale looked at their faces—

  This was impossible!

  Almor was among the dead, his throat slit wide, his lips pulled back from his teeth in a grimace.

  Then the other Almor …?

  An imitator, Cale realized, disguised by magic.

  Thinking quickly, Cale hurdled a desk to his left and put it between him and the two intruders, just as Almor—or the Almor double, rather—entered th
e room behind him. The imitator had disarmed the young guard and held a blade at the lad’s throat.

  “Say nothing and I won’t open a new mouth in his throat.”

  The double still spoke with Almor’s voice. Cale marveled at the accuracy of the disguise spell.

  The young guard, Cale didn’t even know his name, squirmed a bit and said, “Damn this prig to the Nine Hells, Mister Cale. Kill them! Almor, you trait—”

  Faint pressure on the blade drew a thin stream of blood. The young man’s protest ended in a grunt of pain.

  “You hold your tongue too, boy, or the next one’s deeper. And there’s your Almor.”

  The double indicated the corpses on the floor. The young guardsman took in the corpses and went wide-eyed. The double smiled languidly at Cale—an incongruously feminine gesture from Almor’s grizzled face.

  “Cale?” the impostor prompted.

  The two other men advanced a few steps nearer to Cale, cutting off his lane to the far door. Both had blades drawn. Able to see them better, Cale saw that they looked like house guards he knew—Derg and Halthor—but he figured them to be disguised by the same magic as the Almor imitator. The real Derg and Halthor were probably dead. The Halthor lookalike held something in his hand. It took Cale a moment to recognize it: Thamalon’s crystalline sphere, the one Cale had intended to take with him when he had first left Stormweather.

  “Cale, I grow impatient.”

  For emphasis, Almor again nicked the captured guard. To his credit, the boy gritted his teeth and made no sound.

  Cale had no choice, so he said, “All right.”

  Almor gave a satisfied smile and moved farther into the room.

  “You won’t get away,” Cale said, and meant it.

  “Of course I will,” Almor replied. He sidestepped across the room, watching Cale the while. “You’re an intriguing man, Cale, from all I’ve heard and seen. I suspect I might find you entertaining in another context.”

  When Cale heard those words and the innuendo registered, the realization hit him—a woman had disguised herself as Almor. A woman had led the attack on Stormweather Towers and killed the gods knew how many guards. For a terrifying moment, Cale had a mental picture of Tazi, Shamur, and Tamlin murdered in their beds—for clearly the Almor-imitator had not sent guards to protect the Uskevren bedrooms. The thought nauseated him, even while sending a hot rush of rage through him.